Category Archives: robotics

“Consumers are statistics. Customers are people.”–Stanley Marcus

The 2019 Consumer Electronics Show is underway in Las Vegas. Considering the 180,000 attendees, perhaps we should be calling it the Statistics Electronics Show, per Stanley Marcus

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

“The hard part is, how do you make a flying car that’s super safe and quiet? Because if it’s a howler, you’re going to make people very unhappy.”–Elon Musk

“We wanted flying cars; what we got is 140 characters.”–Peter Thiel

Well, guess what? We now have 280 characters, and we may finally be getting flying cars. Well, some of us may get the flying cars. They clearly won’t be mass market cheap for a very long time, if ever. Part 2 of the Seeking Delphi™ Future Driving series presents an interview with Kaushik Rajashekara. He is a University of Houston professor and IEEE fellow who has been tracking the subject for decades. Me? I’ve been vaguely following it ever since The Jetsons.

“Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride”–John F. Kennedy.

I wonder how JFK would have felt about an electric bike ride. Yes, an eBike. They are coming, as everything, but everything, seems to be adding technology.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

“It is not hard to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall it’s a painting, and if you can walk around it it’s a sculpture.”–Tom Stoppard

The future tech news continues to be dominated by artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, and space commerce. Some of it is exciting, some of it is disturbing and some of it–well, I’m not sure what to think. When you read about an A.I. generated paiting fetching big bucks at auction, you just have to scratch your head.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

Portrait of Edmund Bellamy, produced by A.I.

ArtficialIntelligence–An A.I. generated painting has sold for $432,000 at auction. Is this why A.I. developers get paid so much? Christie’s had estimated a value of between $7,000 and $10,000–which on the surface of it seems excessive in itself. Apparently, some people have more money than they know what to do with.

“A woman is like a tea bag–you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water.”–Eleanor Roosevelt

Artificial Intelligence–it seems there is no hotter topic in the tech world these days. Economists try to calculate its potential effects on jobs, car companies aim to tame it for autonomous driving, and big thinkers ala Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking espouse existential worries. But the effects potentially dig down deeper, broader, and perhaps with more subtlety in many other areas of human experience. One sometimes overlooked area of artificial intelligence influence is the effects it may have specifically on women’s issues–both in the workplace and in the home. Alexandra Whittington, of Fast Future Publishing, joins host Mark Sackler for a discussion of these issues on episode #25 of Seeking Delphi.™

Alexandra Whittington is a futurist, writer, foresight director of Fast Future, and faculty member on the Futures program at the University of Houston. She has a particular expertise in future visioning and scenario planning. Alexandra is a contributor to The Future of Business, Beyond Genuine Stupidity—Ensuring AI Serves Humanity, and The Future Reinvented—Reimagining Life, Society, and Business, and a co-editor for forthcoming books Unleashing Human Potential—The Future of AI in Business and 50:50—Scenarios for the Next 50 Years.

“To me–old age is always ten years older than I am.”–Bernard Baruch

“Wrinkles should merely indicate where smiles have been.”–Mark Twain

Ah, yes. I have attained the age at which I truly appreciate the comments of monsiuers Baruch and Twain. And I really appreciate the efforts of those who aim to keep senescence–and dentures–indefinitely in the future.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

“If I go to hotels, they always say, ‘Welcome back’, even when I’ve never been there before.“– Geena Davis

There’s a solution to Geena Davis’s problem. I don’t know if you’re going to like it. But I know the hotel workers of the world are scared to death of it. Even as the World Economic Forum projects that robots will create more jobs than they kill, hospitality workers around the world are talking unionizing to protect jobs if Alexa replaces them on the front desk.

While you’re reading about all this week’s future-related news, don’t forget that you can subscribe to Seeking Delphi™ podcasts on iTunes, PlayerFM, or YouTube(audio with slide show) and you can also follow us on Twitter and Facebook

Automation/Future of Work–The New York Times reports that front desk robots and facial recognition may soon be coming to a hotel near you. And hotel workers around the world are not pleased.